1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for receiving a multimedia message in a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and more particularly to a method for setting reservation time for receiving (downloading) a multimedia message, and receiving (downloading) the multimedia message when the reservation time is reached.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless terminals are generally used for voice communication and/or a Short Message Service (SMS). In an SMS, it is possible to successfully transmit a desired message regardless of the communication state of another wireless terminal. For example, an SMS message may be sent to a wireless terminal that is currently engaged in a voice communication. Moreover, SMS can be provided at low cost, as compared to a voice communication.
Wireless terminals may provide various supplementary functions in addition to a basic communication function. The various supplementary functions can include a photographing function using a digital camera, a music playback function, and a dynamic image display function. Accordingly, a mobile communication system provides an MMS for transmitting/receiving contents, which relate to the supplementary functions, in the form of a multimedia message. For example, the contents, which are included in the multimedia message transmitted/received through the MMS, may be images, dynamic images, sound source, etc.
In the MMS as described above, if a corresponding content file is transmitted to a Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC), which is a system for controlling the transmission/reception of an MMS in a mobile communication environment, according to MMS transmission standard and transmission capacity (generally, 300 kbytes) determined by a company, the MMSC transmits the received content file to a wireless terminal of a receiver. Hereinafter, an operation for executing the MMS will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating a conventional multimedia message (MMS message) service method in a mobile communication network. First, an originating wireless terminal 1 creates a multimedia message to be transmitted and uploads the multimedia message to an MMS proxy server 7 through a mobile communication network in step S201. Then, the multimedia message arrives at the MMS proxy server 7, and the MMS proxy server 7 transmits the basic information of the multimedia message to a terminating wireless terminal 5 in step S203. Herein, the basic information of the multimedia message may include originating-side ID information, originating time information, terminating-side ID information, information about the message type, capacity information of attached content, etc. Then, the terminating wireless terminal 5 analyzes the basic information of the multimedia message and reports the reception of the multimedia message on a display (as illustrated in FIG. 6a) in step S205. Further, the terminating wireless terminal 5 requests the reception of a multimedia message according to setup in step S207. Herein, there are three methods for requesting the reception of the multimedia message. The first method is a manual reception request method in which only the basic information of the multimedia message is received, the reception of the multimedia message is reported, and the reception of content information of the multimedia message is requested if a key is input or a menu is selected by a user. The second method is an auto download reception request method in which the reception of the multimedia message is reported when the basic information of the multimedia message is received, and the reception of content information of the multimedia message is requested at the same time. The third method is a reject reception request method for rejecting the reception of the multimedia message.
The terminating wireless terminal 5 transmits the reception request for the multimedia message to the MMS proxy server 7 according to the operation for requesting the reception of the multimedia message in step S209. If the reception (download) request for the multimedia message transmitted from the terminating wireless terminal 5 normally arrives at the MMS proxy server 7, the terminating wireless terminal 5 receives (downloads) the corresponding multimedia message from the MMS proxy server 7 in step S211. If the terminating wireless terminal 5 completely receives (downloads) the corresponding multimedia message in step S213, the terminating wireless terminal 5 transmits a reception (download) completion notification message, which reports that the reception (download) of the corresponding multimedia message has been completed, to the MMS proxy server 7 in step S215.
When the multimedia message (MMS message) service is used by a user, the user typically incurs a service charge. The service charge may change depending on time zones preset by a corresponding mobile communication company. For example, a relatively high service charge may be set for daytime during which the service is actively used, and a low service charge may be set for night during which the service is not actively used.
The multimedia message (MMS message) service as described above does not provide a user receiving the multimedia message with a more detailed reception request method of the multimedia message based on the personal characteristics of the user. Therefore, the user receiving the multimedia message unnecessarily performs data communication, and unconsciously and frequently receives the multimedia message during a time zone in which a service charge is high.